Dead Endings: Chapter 2

She reached the level and squeezed onto the landing across from him, on the opposite side of the window. They perched there like awkward gargoyles and scanned the alleyway for witnesses.

It remained empty of pedestrians. He jerked his thumb toward the window.

“What do you think?”

Cailen edged over and tried to look through the glass; her scarf chose that moment to slap her in the face. She wrestled it back into her jacket and tried again.

To her horror, she saw light and movement.

“Shit!” she hissed and flattened herself back against the wall.

Everett copied her, his eyes wide. “Spirit?” he mouthed.

She shook her head vigorously.

“People!”

“Ohhhhh, crap.”

From her brief look, Cailen had spied an older woman moving around. She was in the midst of wrapping something, maybe, since there were boxes and piles of things dominating the floor.

The woman’s gray head had only been a few feet away from Cailen’s face. If she’d turned in that moment…

The giddy thrill of a near-miss surged in Cailen’s veins.

Everett started signaling her with a twirling finger to do…something. She raised an eyebrow. He twirled more vigorously.

Get on with it, that snarky finger seemed to say.

She made a gesture of her own, then set to work “feeling” things out, whatever that entailed.

I have no idea what I’m doing, she thought.

Sure, she got that prickling, oh-God-oh-God-there’s-something-here sensation when there was a spirit around–but she normally used that sense to avoid the damned things. Trying to chase a spirit felt absolutely contrary to her nature. She supposed she had nothing but her pride to blame for her current about-face in policy.

Eyes shut, palms flat against the side of the building, Cailen tried to concentrate. But the rattling of the walkway made it very difficult, and she had to settle for two-second chunks of focus between each gust.

Nothing came to her at first–all she felt was her ambient nervousness as the fire escape jittered. Cailen tried to calm her nerves and reach outward. Inch by inch, she mentally envisioned a growing sphere with herself at the center. Like sonar seeking out deep-sea fish, she probed for that particular, otherworldly energy.

And then, through the glass and the bricks of the wall, she began to sense something. A low, steady thrumming from somewhere in the apartment.

She knew this vibration.

Like the apparition in Warner’s place, it was indistinct–nebulous. It had no anchor, no mental shape in her mind. She was sure that if she peeked through the glass again, she would see a hazy, blue cloud.

But it also deviated from the previous encounter in one crucial way: it didn’t react to Cailen herself. She had braced for it to respond when she mentally touched it, but nothing had happened.

Oh, the familiar cadence to the energy was there, confirming its relation to the other blue smudge, but this one lacked…purpose. Cailen got no sense of Portia Jones remaining in the apartment–maybe that made the smudge weaker, somehow? It seemed almost like a washed-out reflection of…

That’s it!

Her eyes opened with a snap.

Everett was staring at her intently. The force of his gaze was a little unnerving, as if she’d just caught him peeping into her kitchen window at night. She shivered at the thought.

He raised an inquiring eyebrow and she motioned for him to begin the climb down. Without a word, he complied, nimble-fingered and fast.

They exited the alleyway as nonchalantly as they could and ducked into a corner market. Cailen felt stupid discussing ghosts amid produce and sliced deli meats, but Everett was champing at the bit.

“Anything?!” he demanded.

She picked up an apple as if inspecting it for purchase, turning it round and round in her long fingers.

“Yeah. And keep it down.”

He attempted to lower his voice. “It is the same spirit, right? I’m not just dragging it around with me?”

“Oh, it’s definitely its own thing,” she assured him.

“I got another whiff of cinnamon out there, so I’m glad it’s not just me. That’s one thing ticked off the list.”

“You can add this to your list.” She looked up from the apple. “That cinnamon-scented blue smudge is a ‘playback.’”

He stared at her. “A…what?”

“You probably can’t tell because you can’t see them, but some spirits are just like recordings. They reenact whatever it was that they were stuck on in life–like their death, a ritual, or even really mundane stuff, like a habit. They’re not aware, so to speak. I see them all the time, but they don’t bother me because they’re stuck on whatever they’re doing. Or, they just don’t care.” She shrugged. “Who knows? At any rate, the thing in there was definitely a playback. It had zero interest in me or in that woman who was inside.”

Everett frowned. “Then what about the cinnamon, uh, blue thing in Warner’s? That couldn’t have been a playback–it beelined for you.”

“Beelined for me…or for Warner?”

He stopped at that.

“I think,” she said, picking up an orange this time, “that what we saw at Warner’s was a mix. The cinnamon smudge was a playback, but Warner was the real deal: an active ghost and not just an echo.”

“So you only felt the playback because he felt it?”

She frowned. “That’s my best guess, anyway. Thinking back on it, I only saw the thing because Warner was looking at it, while Warner was possessing me. I didn’t sense it at all until we pinned Warner down in the bedroom, and I didn’t feel anything from it until Warner did.”

“But why would these…playbacks be in two separate apartments? It is the same spirit–playback–whatever, right?”

She considered the fruit.

“Playbacks are like…imprints on a location. They’re ‘ghosts’ insofar as they’re dead people leftovers, but of the non-interactive variety. No possessions, no dicking around with objects, and no interest in the living. They just do…what they do. They’re found in places where something really emotional or important happened–suicides, deep regrets, or even happy things.

“But they’re usually residual feelings from people who died in that particular place; they sure as hell don’t show up in multiple locations. And if this ‘cinnamon’ thing was separate from Warner and was there when he died…hell, it felt like it settled over him, which implies ‘cinnamon’ was an active ghost who was screwing with him.” She furrowed her brow.

“If there are two playbacks with the same signature, or three if we assume Markle’s place is the same, and we can peg ‘cinnamon’ as an active ghost, then it’s possible that these playbacks are imprints that the ghost is leaving. Regular playbacks are usually locked to the place of death, after all, so if something could move around after leaving one and spawn a bunch more, it would have to be dead already.”

She sighed. “I’ve never seen a spirit leave a playback before, but maybe that’s what’s happening. This cinnamon spirit-thing could be leaving something akin to footprints–the aftereffect of being in these spots when some nasty shit has gone down.”

Everett picked up an orange of his own and slowly turned it, his black eyes locked on its bumpy surface. Then he gave a small smile.

“You do know some stuff, after all.”

“Ha.”

“So, what does it mean?”

She threw the orange in the air and caught it. “Haven’t the faintest idea.”

Everett scowled. “I take it back,” he muttered. “The next time I want an undead smudge explained, I’ll skip the fire escape/wacky possession route and call an expert.”

There was a shuffling sound behind them. Cailen turned.

An old woman stared at them with wide, rheumy eyes. She hesitated, as if gauging whether or not they’d bite, then hobbled quickly between them to snatch two oranges. She hobbled back, her eyes never leaving their faces, before finally turning to retreat.

“Little louder next time,” she suggested.

Color burned magnificently in Everett’s cheeks.

Cailen replaced the orange. “Hey, I did what I could. We’ll just have to see what Gabriella says.”

Grudgingly, he conceded. They left the shop, heads bowed against the wind.

As they parted ways at the subway entrance, Everett paused on the top stair. He frowned at her through the railing.

“If ‘cinnamon’ is a playback, like you say, it still doesn’t address the main problem.”

She met his eyes solemnly. “Ghosts don’t use knives,” she finished for him.

“Exactly.” With a shake of his head, he descended the steps.

She watched until his lean form was completely swallowed by the crowd.

***

Later that night, Cailen crawled into bed early for a change. With the tepid remains of a hot toddy for company, she snuggled under the covers and stared at the ceiling. The water stains formed hunched figures that night. They seemed to shuffle back and forth in the light of the flickering candles, like unimaginative line dancers.

As she watched their unsteady forms, her mind drifted back to the excitement of lunch. Thai food and illicit activities was a definite change from her usual fare. And she hadn’t hated it, really. If they managed to break into Markle’s place, she was even prepared to entertain a career in crime. They were doing pretty well so far.

She wondered if Everett, even now, was crouched outside of Markle’s apartment. The lurid side of her imagination had him scaling trees to get into the place. Or maybe he was infiltrating the funeral of the second victim, hoping to catch the odor of undead cinnamon.

Part of her really hoped that he attempted the funeral route and ended up in a cemetery. The number of wispy spirits at Strawberry Fields had astonished her the one time she passed the place, and she imagined that for those with spiritually sensitive noses, the smell would be spectacular. The mental image of Everett setting foot in a ghost hub cheered her greatly.

The pleasant thought stayed with her as she drifted off. Even the grind of a key in her front door faded to white noise in the dark.

To be continued in Chapter 3.

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